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"Very well!" Feng Xin shouted. "Your Highness, pardon the insolence!"
Xie Lian also returned, "Pard …."
Something hot slapped onto his back, and Mu Qing yelled, "Stay still, don't talk!"
And then, Xie Lian's entire person froze stiff.
Xie Lian was fighting to speak when Mu Qing said in a voice like ice, "Untie that thing on your finger."
Hua Cheng stared darkly at the rubble in front of him, and checked the string on his finger again. His Highness was somewhere in front of him; there was no exit except to come through this rock fall. If he waited, they would come to him.
Hua Cheng was very, very good at waiting.
He couldn't wait forever—His Highness, with those thrice-damned shackles, would need food eventually—but the two useless twits with him were impatient sorts. They'd come to him well before he'd need to worry about His Highness's safety.
He wasn't sure His Highness would want to be near him after what they'd uncovered in the caves, but that didn't matter. He only needed to see His Highness safe. Being tolerated was nice, but unnecessary. Hua Cheng could work from the shadows if he needed to, once they were out of these caves.
His Highness could hate him, and Hua Cheng would accept it. Whatever he chose to do—
He frowned. Something was ….
If he'd had a heartbeat, it would have stuttered as he whipped his right hand out from behind his back.
The red string tied there loosened, the knot unfolding. It stuck for a second, and then with the gentleness of a wraith butterfly the string slipped free.
No. No, no—
Hua Cheng reached after it out of instinct, grabbing for the end as it drifted away into the air.
Your Highness, no—
His fingers brushed it, but it was already insubstantial, dissolving into a thousand tiny red specks.
No!
They landed on his fingers. He closed his hand, but slowly, softly, they faded.
Hua Cheng was left standing with a fist full of nothing.
His world had lost its axis, and was lurching like a cart with a broken wheel. He staggered, hit the wall, leaned on it.
I'm sorry, Your Highness.
Slowly, he slid down it.
I failed you.
His left eye saw nothing. His right eye—
A golden hero, leaping to catch him. Saving him.
I should never have let them take you.
A white-clad god, cleaving through a battlefield.
I should have been there.
A god alone in another cave, bearing torment to save one boy.
I wasn't enough.
Time had no meaning anymore. He was barely aware and unashamed of the tears running down his face. He clutched his head as if he could protect himself from reality, and wondered if someone would find his ashes or if he'd need to do it himself.
Find his ashes. On His Highness's body.
He couldn't stop the sound that escaped him. Someone should bury him. That was one last service he could do for the man who had been his god and his beloved.
If there was a body. He'd seen His Highness reduced to little more than a mass of flesh before. Hua Cheng had been reborn from the pain of watching that happen, helpless.
This was worse, the ultimate helplessness. Would it be harder to bury a still, cold body that would never again call him San Lang, or to find it already destroyed?
San Lang.
Anything strong enough to destroy His Highness should have destroyed his ashes. It had been comforting to believe that he'd disperse with His Highness—that he'd never know a world without his beloved god.
The part of him that could feel keened for vengeance, to find what had taken His Highness from the world and obliterate it.
San Lang.
The rest of him was a whirling emptiness as dark as the deepest cave. What did vengeance matter, without His Highness to make anything worth caring about?
"San Lang."
Something brushed his sleeve.
"San Lang!"
It was impossible. That voice no longer existed.
"San Lang!"
The darkness inside him lit with rage. Who would dare—
Slowly he lifted his head, gathering his spiritual power. He no longer needed to reserve any—if he burnt himself to a cinder, so be it—
A warm hand found his and squeezed it.
The face in front of him was … gentle. Smiling sheepishly.
"San Lang, I'm sorry."
The thrum under his fingers, the muted singing of divine blood under two very authentic cursed shackles … how many times had he lain awake at night, next to that quiet song?
It can't be.
"They put a command talisman on me. I didn't break it fast enough."
A command talisman. If they'd ordered him to untie it …. "Your Highness," he got out in a voice that crunched like gravel, through lips that had gone numb.
Those perfect eyebrows tilted even further and his god looked away as if he was ashamed. "Forgive me, San Lang?"
"No need, Your Highness." What a joke. "There's nothing to forgive."
His Highness's gaze stole back to Hua Cheng's face. His lips parted, but rather than speak, he brought his hand up and delicately wiped the tears from Hua Cheng's cheeks.
"You're alive," Hua Cheng added, and didn't care that his voice cracked.
"I looked at your statues, when you didn't want me to. I ran away from you, and I didn't defend myself well enough to stop them from destroying the string. San Lang—even if you don't think it's necessary, I'm still sorry."
All he could think to say was the same thing. "You're alive."
His Highness smiled at him, tentatively, as if it was him who was afraid of his welcome. "I'll find a way to make it up to you later, San Lang, I promise!"
Later. It was like wrenching a stuck door back open. We'll get to have a "later".
There were some people Hua Cheng thought shouldn't have a later. "What did you do with them?"
"Hm?" His Highness lifted his gaze from where it had drifted down to their hands. "Oh, Feng Xin and Mu Qing? They're tied up with Ruoye."
He'd let those two slide a few too many times. This time … I thought he was dead. What punishment could equal that?
"San Lang? There's … something I need to ask. Please, answer me honestly and seriously?"
Didn't he know already that Hua Cheng would do anything for him? "Alright."
"Just … who is … that 'noble, gracious, special someone'?"
That question was unexpected. His hand twitched, and His Highness's loosened.
How could Hua Cheng look him in the eye and say this? He stared at the ground. His Highness was all those things and more—how could Hua Cheng admit to …? "If Your Highness has already found out, then why ask." His voice ran out before he could make it a question.
He caught the edge of movement as His Highness nodded. "I see. So I didn't misunderstand."
He couldn't speak. He couldn't look up.
His Highness's hand changed its grip on his. "Can you fix it? Or … remake it?"
Fix what? I can't stop loving you. That's the one command I cannot obey, Your Highness, I'm sorry—
But when he lifted his gaze, His Highness was staring at his own finger, the third on his left hand.
"I liked it," His Highness added with a sheepish smile. "But it's okay! I wouldn't want you to waste your spiritual power—"
"If you want it, it's not wasted." Hua Cheng brought his other hand around to cover theirs, and reached for the spiritual power that lurked inside him.
"Wait!"
He froze.
With his other hand, His Highness ran his fingers through his own hair—and then yanked several strands free. "Will this help? It'll be stronger, won't it?" He turned over Hua Cheng's left hand and coiled the (precious, irreplaceable, divine) strands in its palm.
For a second, Hua Cheng was back in another cave, a terrified boy trying to serve his god. "It will help," he agreed just as His Highness's face started to fall. "Your Highness … if it doesn't bother you … I could use my hair, too. Then it would be even stronger. Stronger than a command talisman—you'd have to want to untie it."
He wasn't expecting His Highness's face to light up quite like that. "San Lang is so wise."
It took two hands; he was forced to let go of His Highness to pull a few strands free and wind them together with the divine ones already in his hand. It felt like sacrilege to twist them around each other, god and ghost. How could he dare—
His Highness held out his hand expectantly.
Hua Cheng didn't let his hands shake as he tied one set around that godly finger.
"I'll do yours?" His Highness offered shyly.
Wordlessly, Hua Cheng held out his own hand in return.
His Highness was careful, tying it only tight enough to hold, not to dig in. When the knot was secure, his fingers rested on Hua Cheng's like a benediction for a few seconds before he slid his hand down and entwined their fingers so they were palm to palm. "What now?"
Hua Cheng covered their joined hands with his left one and wrapped his power around them. It bled down his own hair like a vein, then eased out and over His Highness's; Hua Cheng braced for a reaction, for his ghostly aura to be rejected, but … that fragment of divine being soaked the power in like a man drinking water in the desert, taking it into itself with a shine like it was wondrous gold and not an evil power that it was curled around.
When Hua Cheng lifted his hand, a pair of red threads gleamed on their fingers, as bright as heart's blood.
"Thank you, San Lang!" His Highness exclaimed, with the open happiness that never failed to captivate Hua Cheng. "Truly, I am lucky to have such a talented man …." He trailed off, and coughed shyly. "Around."
"It's nothing, Gege," Hua Cheng assured him.
"San Lang …."
His Highness seemed to be struggling with something.
Hua Cheng waited. His Highness could take all the time he needed. I could sit here forever with you, and it would not be enough.
"San Lang …."
"If you don't want to say it, then it doesn't need to be said, Your Highness."
"No, no—it's not that!" His Highness bit his lip lightly. "It's only that I want to be clear. This should be clear, haha."
He leaned forward. "Your Highness—"
Lips found his.
… oh.
There was no drain of spiritual power—His Highness didn't seem to need anything from him that way. Instead, arms were around his shoulders, strong fingers in his hair, and was that a tongue …?
It was. He parted his lips, let His Highness take as he saw fit.
A few seconds later, His Highness pulled away. "I—San Lang, you're not—have I forced myself—?"
Hua Cheng had forgotten to take a breath, and couldn't speak, but His Highness's meaning was clear.
So Hua Cheng kissed him instead this time, rising to his knees so he could hold his beloved god close, so he could feel that beautiful heartbeat (alive, alive, wonderfully alive) against his chest.
This time, when His Highness drew back, he was smiling. "I understand now."
"En?"
Those warm eyes met his. "Passing through the flowers, my heart remains unmoved; perhaps because of Daoism, perhaps … because of … you."
